Colleges Offering Campuses as Final Resting Places

By ALAN FINDER

Published: May 18, 2007

Want to recapture those undergraduate years? Colleges and universities are offering the chance -- for eternity.

For a few thousand dollars, the University of Richmond and a half-dozen other universities are giving alumni and faculty the opportunity to have their ashes maintained on campus in perpetuity.

Three more universities -- Notre Dame, the Citadel and Hendrix College -- are building similar memorials, known as columbaria.

''It seems really off the wall on first blush to most people,'' said Richard W. Trollinger, who was involved in the creation of one at Centre College, a liberal arts college in Danville, Ky. ''Why on earth would a university create a columbarium?''

The answer is simple, Mr. Trollinger and other college officials say. In an era when many people are highly mobile and do not settle in one place for long, a college can have a strong allure as a final resting place, they say. And officials point out that colleges have a special resonance for many people, who have forged life-long relationships as undergraduates.

''Returning to that place as a final resting place can be a very powerful notion,'' said J. Timothy Cloyd, the president of Hendrix, a small liberal arts college in Conway, Ark.

For the universities, memorial walls can serve other purposes, although officials are often reluctant to talk about them. A columbarium, by building stronger bonds with alumni and their families, might lead eventually to substantial donations.

''What schools are looking to do is to get people to include them in their wills, in their estates, and this is a natural adjunct to that,'' said Tim Westerbeck, a managing director of Lipman Hearne, a marketing firm that works with universities and other nonprofits. ''The idea of people being buried on campus is the period at the end of the sentence, so to speak. It's the final commitment.''

''I think schools are all about building deep affinity, just like a business needs to build customer loyalty,'' Mr. Westerbeck added.

But at many institutions, sales for columbaria have been slow, perhaps in part because marketing tends to be subdued. Prices vary, ranging from $1,800 to over $3,000.

College officials say interested alumni or staff members -- not university fund-raisers and consultants -- came up with the idea of building columbaria on campuses.

''Many people don't identify with their churches or their churches don't have cemeteries like they used to,'' said the Rev. David D. Burhans, a retired chaplain at the University of Richmond who was involved in the creation of a large campus columbarium six years ago. ''But people feel very connected to their colleges, and there are some beautiful places on campuses.''

The columbarium at Richmond is in a serpentine wall that encloses a garden next to the university's chapel. Niches within the wall cost $3,000, and can hold one or two urns with cremated ashes. The garden is peaceful and secluded, and yet just around a corner from the middle of the bustling campus.

''It's so lovely that people go there and read, eat their lunches,'' said Mr. Burhans, who recalled with a laugh that some people had called him ''Dr. Death'' when the idea was first under discussion a decade ago. ''It's not morose, it's not drab, it's a beautiful spot. You can almost feel the sacredness of it.''

The columbarium holds 3,000 niches, but only about 100 have been sold since it was completed in 2001.

The University of Virginia appears to have built the first memorial wall 16 years ago, the fruit of a concerted campaign by an alumnus, Leigh B. Middleditch Jr. A graduate of both Virginia's undergraduate college and law school, Mr. Middleditch has practiced law for 50 years in Charlottesville and has been active with the university as a lawyer, adjunct professor and trustee.

He said he had wanted to be buried in the university's cemetery, but it had run out of room. Recalling a columbarium in the church he attended while growing up outside Detroit, he lobbied to create one at the university. ''Because of a long affiliation with the University of Virginia, I wanted to be buried there,'' he said.

Some of Mr. Middleditch's friends lent money to finance the memorial wall, which replaced part of a wall of the cemetery. He assumed the project would ultimately raise large amounts of money for the university.

''I was totally wrong,'' he said.

The first phase of the columbarium, with 180 niches, was built in 1991. All but one of those spaces have been sold, and a second phase, with another 180 niches, was built. A niche in the first phase cost $1,800 and one in the second phase will cost $2,500.

The money goes primarily to pay for building the columbarium and long-term maintenance. The university has done limited marketing to alumni and faculty. ''It's had a very low profile,'' said Dr. Dearing W. Johns, an associate professor at Virginia's medical school and chairwoman of the cemetery committee.

At Centre College, which has not advertised its columbarium to alumni, only 7 of the 84 cubicles in the memorial wall built seven years ago have been sold. At Sweet Briar College, a liberal arts college for women in Sweet Briar, Va., niches in a small columbarium built in the early 1990's cost from $1,800 to $2,800; about half of the 64 spaces have been sold, said Chuck Kestner, a retired director of planning and construction.

Chapman University in Orange, Calif., completed a modern columbarium a year and a half ago, with 14-foot curved walls made of blue Brazilian marble. ''On most days, it's almost like you're stepping into the sky,'' said the Rev. Ronald L. Farmer, dean of the Wallace All Faiths Chapel at Chapman.

The columbarium at Notre Dame will be part of a larger project, the construction of two mausoleums in the university's cemetery, an initiative called Coming Home.

Will the idea continue to catch on? Richard A. Hesel, a principal of the Art and Science Group, which consults with colleges and universities on marketing and other matters, said he would not be surprised.

''A college is one of the few remaining places in people's lives where there is a real community,'' Mr. Hesel said. ''I think this could really blossom.''

Photos: John H. Hoogakker, an associate vice president at the University of Richmond, said the campus columbarium could accommodate generations.; Richmond's columbarium has 3,000 niches, of which 100 have been sold since its completion in 2001. (Photographs by Jay Paul for The New York Times)